In rock crushing equipment, manganese steel is used for the wear surfaces of the crusher plates. This material is required because of its resistance to abrasive materials. However, the availability of manganese has made it virtually impossible to obtain delivery of manganese steel castings in reasonable periods of time. The large size of the crusher plates has also complicated delivery of such materials because of the absence of machining facilities that are available to machine this material. It has also been found that the wear on the crusher plate is less than 30% of the total surface area of the plate and is generally located along the lower edge of the crusher plate. Therefore, a substantial material waste occurs each time the total crusher plate has to be changed. This waste of a critical material, as well as an increase in the cost of the total plate since this material has more than doubled in price within the last year, has been overcome by the present invention.